Many different types of delineator poles, used for such things as slalom gates, hazard markers, parking lot boundary markers, sign posts, or field markers, are known in the prior art.
Delineating poles are often damaged or cause damage when a moving object comes into contact with the pole. Ski racing, for example, involves full contact between skiers travelling at high rates of speed and the slalom poles resulting in numerous contusions and facial injuries to the skier. Parking lot boundary marking poles, for example, are often struck by vehicles causing damage to both the pole and the vehicle.
Typical slalom poles are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,054,955; and 4,588,324 and a typical self-redressing slalom pole is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,599,012. A typical field marker is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,371,647, and a typical delineator pole is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,270,873.
None of these prior art delineator poles, however, sufficiently reduces the impact resulting from a collision between the pole and a moving object such that injury to the pole and object is reduced, or minimized.
Thus, it is a problem in the prior art to reduce the damage to both a person or object and the delineator pole resulting when a moving object collides with the delineator pole.
It is also a problem in the prior art to provide a delineator pole which not only softens the impact of a person or object colliding with it, but is also able to restore itself to an upright position after the collision.